


Ink stains in time-space

by Wineabout



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Laura Hale, Angst and Humor, Banter, Beta Peter Hale, Established Relationship, First Meetings, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Magical Tattoos, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Swearing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29604597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wineabout/pseuds/Wineabout
Summary: “Okay buddy,” Stiles crooned at the book, cracking his knuckles with his thumb against each joint before he exhaled a heavy breath.The grass of the small meadow in the preserve he’d found was cold under his ass, made his jeans feel slightly damp even though it hadn’t rained in weeks. There was a nice light wind and enough moonlight to make the shadows in the trees seem dark and menacing.Stiles wondered, if this worked, if he’d still feel this way when he came back. Time travel was funny like that. Would he still be afraid of what could whisper from the darkness? Or would he set his past-self in such a widely different direction his biggest fear would be… Stiles couldn’t remember what his biggest fear was when he was 16.~~~Stiles goes back in time to kidnap a patient, lure an alpha, and grow some plants. Peter helps.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 24
Kudos: 432
Collections: Steter Discord Valentine's Exchange 2021





	Ink stains in time-space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penumbria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penumbria/gifts).



> Happy Valentines Penumbria! I hope you like this!
> 
> See end notes for Content Warnings!

An ancient book, with text that wasn’t really text, laid open in the grass. The words, that weren’t really words, stood out like braille on the page as Stiles dragged his tattooed fingers against them. 

By all accounts, the pages were so old they should have crumbled away to dust in the breeze, but they’re solid under his touch. When he pressed against the ink, which he interpreted more than read, the page pressed back. A familiar warning pressure. 

It wasn’t the sort of book that liked to be handled. Though Stiles already knew that; it had made itself fifty pounds heavier when he’d yanked it off the shelf earlier in the day. He had a smarting black bruise on his chest to show for it. 

“Okay buddy,” Stiles crooned at the book, cracking his knuckles with his thumb against each joint before he exhaled a heavy breath.

The grass of the small meadow in the preserve he’d found was cold under his ass, made his jeans feel slightly damp even though it hadn’t rained in weeks. There was a nice light wind and enough moonlight to make the shadows in the trees seem dark and menacing. 

Stiles wondered, if this worked, if he’d still feel this way when he came back. Time travel was funny like that. Would he still be afraid of what could whisper from the darkness? Or would he set his past-self in such a widely different direction his biggest fear would be… Stiles couldn’t remember what his biggest fear was when he was 16.

It had been so long. Ten years. Ten years of sprinting to stay alive and feeling guilty that he had. Ten years of grief and guilt and hanging on to decomposing morals in the face of violent tragedy after disaster after death. 

Scott was right - he needed to fix what he’d done. Though the part of him that sounded an awful lot like Peter Hale whispered it wasn’t his fault - he had nothing to fix. 

Maybe his Peter-conscience was right, but how could he not try now that he’d discovered this was an option? 

The freshly-inked raven on his shoulder itched. Stiles resisted the urge to scratch for a moment before he gave in. It didn’t matter if he messed up the healing now - he likely wouldn’t have it when he came back. Wouldn’t have any of the tattoos that flowed across his body, from toes to fingers in whimsy images and random swirls. The ink he fed his magic with would be gone, or rather, never a thought in the first place. 

He wouldn’t have magic when he came back - if he came back. 

Closing his eyes against the ache in his chest he turned the pages of the book, which had dictated its words to generations of Sparks before him, until he felt he’d found the right one. It was one of his own pages, not-words written by his hand as the book decided it wanted them. His penmanship was the worst in the book but it still looked right, impressive, on these pages. 

The illustrations were what always amazed him though- they flowed and twisted into shape around the meandering not-text of the spell magic. 

These pages were particularly stunning. 

A galaxy was sprawled out across the spread open book, he could dip his fingers into the image, swirl the stars and feel their heat. 

When he parted his lips to wet them, he could taste the magic, the not-words he wouldn’t say as he didn’t read the stream of magic that was weaving around the galaxy. 

Both hands slipped into the image. He knew, if he wanted to, he could fall right into it and get lost. Tumble through this safe galaxy forever, untouchable as he weaved into the book’s heart. Little stars and meteors crashed into his fingers; burning and abrasive against his skin.

Ink sizzled. 

The tattoos on his fingers melted into the page; added to the image. Stars that were born in the gutter of the spread book were blotted out. Slowly, the picture morphed until he was looking into a tear in time instead of a calm eternity. 

Woods, these woods, 10 years younger looked back at him. 

The night sounds quieted around him. The owls were silent, the crickets still. 

“Oh sweetheart, not without me,” Peter’s voice came from behind him. A warm, familiar, heartbreaking sound - that startled him enough his hands jerked and collided with the planets and solar flares he was holding open like a cat's cradle around his time warp. 

“Peter, I have to go-” Stiles tried to sound level, there was sweat dripping into his eyes but they burned from emotion more than the salt. 

Peter shrugged, kneeling into the grass at his back to loop large arms around his chest. “I know, but if this is the last of us - I want every, last, moment.” He punctuated with a press of his nose into neck and cheek and temple. 

“Don’t say that - maybe we’ll…” 

“Maybe we’ll still find each other? A pretty thought but we collided, Stiles, repeatedly - because of the malevolent nature of this town and the very events you’re undoing.” Peter didn’t sound angry, he didn’t sound resigned either but he did sound final. 

“I love you,” Stiles murmured. His hands burned with a thousand points of crashing stars and boiling ink that dripped out of him. It flowed down from the tattoos on his wrists while the simmer kept crawling upward. 

Peter kissed his cheek, reached around, and slid his palms through the wet ink on Stiles’ forearms so they were coated in the liquidy black. He plunged his hands into the book too. 

“And I, you,” Peter promised before Stiles felt the spell snap shut on them both. 

Lurching through time felt a lot like being ripped apart, put together, and shaken like raw chicken in a bag of bread crumbs.

The woods they stood in, fell in, and curled up to moan in, looked so much the same that if he didn’t _know_ the magic had worked Stiles would expect to be able to find his Jeep in the off-lot by the highway. 

“If you had mentioned it was going to be like that I would have kissed you goodbye and gone home,” Peter complained where he was wiping his mouth, knelt in the grass next to a murky puddle. 

Stiles managed enough composure to flip him off with a pale hand. His fingers flexed out as he looked at them, and then the other set, in the moonlight. Just below his elbows, there was a line, as if he’d dipped his arms in turpentine and his tattoos had simply washed away. He felt naked. Though he always did - until he had them redone. But he wouldn’t get to do that this time. 

“Let’s just go, alright? And, try not to look like a coma patient.” Stiles crawled up a tree trunk to get to his feet, unstable and fighting to roll the sleeves of his black hoodie back down to his wrists. 

There was a little more retching before Peter was up on his feet. He bumped their shoulders together as he fell into step beside him. “I cut my hair, and look at this beard - You can’t recognize Zooey Deschanel without bangs. Do you _really_ think I’m much of a risk?” 

Stiles wrinkled up his nose, elbow gently jerked over to get Peter between the ribs. “Will you shut up about that - it was one picture. You’re the one who thought it was the same guy in Naked Gun and Taken.” 

“Liam Neeson and Leslie Nielsen - tell me those don’t sound like the same name,” Peter bit back with the same stubborn disgruntlement that always came from this argument. 

“Just shut up, and put on my reading glasses,” Stiles sighed as he dug them out of his pocket. He pushed the tortoiseshell hipster frames into Peter’s chest as they trudged toward town. 

“Ah, because _no one recognized Clark Kent,_ ” Peter mocked but complied. 

“No one recognized Clark Kent!” 

“In a comic!” Peter sighed as if his breath came from the very depths of his soul. But, he let his hand be taken. 

Stiles grinned and admired him for a moment. Cardigan, glasses, hair just-so with his affectionately irritable lip wrinkle. 

He would miss this. The way their arguments had twisted from brutal debates about the right way to handle supernatural messes to domestic squabbling with no consequences and deepening affection. 

“How many people do you think totally recognized him but then pretended they didn’t to keep the secret alive?” Stiles asked on a yawn that distorted his words. 

“Realistically, it would be better not to know who he was - with all of those corny villains,” Peter said and helped Stiles over a log as they cut across the woods to the walking trail. 

“Not sure you have a lot of room to talk about corny villains.” 

“I will in a few days,” Peter pointed out. It sobered them both. 

Everything was going to change. 

\---

Beacon Hills Long Term Care Outpatient Facility was quiet in the middle of the night. 

The night shift nurses were, theoretically, manning their desks. The patients were, theoretically, all in bed. And, theoretically, their anti-wandering measures and security cameras would make it very difficult to sneak anyone in - or out. 

“Do you remember this at all?” Stiles asked, in a whisper, as they leaned around the side of the building to watch a woman wheeling a slumped over past-Peter out of an emergency exit into the moonlight. 

It was three months before Peter would bite Scott. 

“Bits and pieces,” Peter responded. His lip was curled up over a fang, his glare was the sort of menacing that bordered murderous. 

The woman, Peter’s nurse, was looking up to the moon. Her hand laid on the unburnt side of past-Peter’s head, stroking his hair back. “How long are you going to keep doing this Peter? How long are you going to make me wait?” Her voice was soft, but it carried if Stiles focused on it - the tattoos behind his ears tingling with the effort. 

“How awake are you?” Stiles gestured to past-Peter who was barely stirring in his seat as his head was pushed back to stare up at the moon. Unfocused eyes flickering blue. 

“Awake enough, I suppose, but not…” Peter made a vague gesture and Stiles hummed low with understanding. Not himself, void of all humanity, detached from anything that could anchor him. 

The nurse bent over, her fingers hooking into past-Peter’s mouth, to open his jaw and make room for the fangs that were extending out painfully slowly. Stiles could see claws loose over the arms of the wheelchair. 

“I can’t believe you went from _this_ to committing serial murders in a few months.” 

Peter shrugged against his back and then tipped his face away from the scene. He pressed into the back of Stiles’ shoulder instead. 

“Scott just - he doesn’t want the bite anymore. He doesn’t… He thinks if it had never been him-” Stiles spoke into the dark as they watched the nurse sit down on the lip of the pavement to stare up at the sky. 

“Yes, I heard him. If he hadn’t been the one to be bitten, then he wouldn’t have been involved with the supernatural, and Allison wouldn’t have gotten involved with the Nogitsune and you wouldn’t have killed her.” Peter’s voice was low and scathing as he repeated the words that had cored Stiles’ heart out. “Which you didn’t. You didn’t kill her. She died.” 

Stiles grunted but didn’t point out that he didn’t see much of a distinction, though he knew what Peter meant. 

Peter had gone off about misplaced guilt more than once as Scott deteriorated further and further trying to manage wanting to be human again and growing bitter about the losses he’d had. It didn’t help that as Scott aged, the charm of strength and speed lost out to the risks of being a hunting trophy. 

“Just… whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re here now, and if we pull this off, no one gets bitten.” Stiles rubbed his hand through his hair, fingers catching on the stud at the top of his ear. He fiddled with the metal for a moment before he blew out a breath. 

“Should I just kill her and we take… me?” Peter suggested and then huffed a laugh at the face Stiles gave him. 

“No, no murder,” Stiles insisted as he turned his gaze from his Peter to past-Peter. “But you could… scare her a little? She already believes in werewolves. Why don’t you go and show her what she thinks she wants?” 

Peter grumbled against his neck. A long-suffering sigh heating through the thick cotton of his hoodie. 

“Fine,” Peter agreed as he ripped the borrowed glasses off his face. He took the time to snap in both arms before he pushed the frames into Stiles’ hoodie pocket. His features morphed into betashift, a rumbling growl shaking through the night air as he stalked around the building’s edge. 

“Go get’em, tiger,” Stiles slapped Peter on the ass as he passed by. A very firm ass, that he would miss a great deal. “And by ‘em, I mean you.” 

It was uncomfortably quiet in the lot, no cars on the road, no movement in any of the windows. Back when Beacon Hills was sleepy and no one looked twice at anything. Not that anyone in Beacon Hills was that good at looking even _once_ when it came to weird shit - they had to be the ignorant bystander capital of the world. 

The quiet gave way to Peter’s rumbling growl but it still took a moment for the nurse to notice Peter coming. 

It took a moment, but when she did it was _deeply_ satisfying to watch her piss herself and then faint against the sidewalk she’d tried to scramble backward on. Like a disoriented crab. 

Peter looked down at the nurse, his claws still out, his fangs gleaming before his chin tilted and he peered down the walk to where Stiles was coming toward him instead. 

“No murder,” Stiles repeated with a wag of his finger and a grin as he approached. He popped up on his toes to kiss the funny ridge of Peter’s shifted brow. 

“We never do anything I want to do,” Peter complained, but he had a smirk on his mouth and a mock whine in his voice. 

The emergency door of the building was still propped open with a sandbag. Stiles nudged it loose with the steel toe of his boot and let it swing shut before he approached past-Peter. 

“I forgot how shit you looked,” Stiles commented as he bent down, hands on his knees, and took a good look at the scarred burns that split past-Peter in two. 

“Have I ever told you I admire your tact?” Peter sniffed at him, expression human; his hands hanging in his cardigan pockets. “Now what?”

“Phase Two.” 

\---

“This is why shit goes from zero to one hundred in this fucking town,” Stiles complained as he pushed the wheelchair down Mainstreet. 

There weren’t any cars out driving, a few parked on the side of the street. The chair had a squeak as they pushed it; a rippling grind of a bad spoke with every rotation. The sound bounced against the jaunty brick storefronts that lined the road - half of which had apartments on top for the business owners.

Not even one curtain twitched. 

A punk in all black with piercings and neck tattoos, a cardigan-wearing DILF, and a half-crisped dude in a wheelchair. 

“No one gives a shit about anything weird here. Do you know how many of our future problems would have been solved early if anyone in this town was like - hey you know I thought I saw a weird guy dragging something heavy and body shaped in a sack down main?” 

“Two,” Peter recalled with a slow nod as he scratched at his short beard and reached out to push past-Peter’s head over a bit so he wasn’t staring vacantly up at him. 

“Two…” Stiles stalled before he lifted a hand from the wheelchair handle to flail it over. “You know what I mean. Like, if we had a normal nosy neighborhood we would have a normal neighborhood warning when people start disappearing or getting murdered in random places - Like a dozen supernatural assassins just walked through here, remember?” 

Peter smirked, “You know there’s a reason people here don’t look too closely at anything.” 

“Is this you finally admitting my cursed town theory is right?” 

“No.”

“Alright, then what’s your theory?”

The heavy sigh beside him fogged the air a little, Peter looked up at the moon before his head tilted and he had the _You’re an Idiot_ nose wrinkle. “Because they have no desire to be looked at very closely either. This town has a dense supernatural and affiliated population.” 

“I _guess_ ,” Stiles grumbled and jerked the wheelchair over a crack in the cement before he swerved them to avoid a pothole. 

“Would you be careful with me?” Peter sounded affronted. 

The body in the chair wasn’t his Peter. Stiles had a hard time accepting that he even was Peter. Right now he was just a body - a shell - the solution to his problems. But past-Peter was going to be… not-past-Peter soon enough. 

“Are you scared of who you’ll be?” Stiles asked before he puffed his cheeks to avoid letting his eyes water. 

Peter paused, humming a vague thoughtful noise before he settled an over-hot hand on the back of Stiles’ nape. It felt like safety - he’d miss that. 

“I like to think I’ve already been the worst version of me possible,” Peter said with a squeeze of his fingers before they fell away. “Are you?”

“Not scared but -” Stiles shrugged, his tattoos tingling and that molten sense of magic in his core flaring for a moment. He could feel his heartbeat, and Peter’s, and the flow of electricity in the street lamps above them. “If I remember who I am now - when we go back… I just can’t imagine not being a Spark anymore. It’s-” 

“Part of you, I know,” Peter said. His shoulder bumped over reassuringly. 

Being a Spark wasn’t like being a wolf. It wasn’t his nature. It wasn’t concrete. Stiles could trace it now, through his moody ancient book, the exact circumstances that aligned for it to wake up in him. There was no real control, it wasn’t something he could force in the future even if he did remember having it when they got back to their time. 

“You know, you’re doing this for people who likely won’t even remember you at your high school reunion,” Peter pointed out with flat-toned pragmatism. 

“Shut up, Peter.” 

\---

Stiles leaned one hand on the cold metal top of the payphone outside of the motel at the edge of Beacon Hills. His feet were aching from the long walk. The moon had moved halfway across the sky and hung just off-center when he looked up. 

“Hello?” A feminine voice answered. 

“Hi there. Uh, I’m looking for Laura Hale?” Stiles asked as he leaned his forehead against his hand. Rubbing at his eyebrow and the scarred notch in it. 

“Who’s calling?” 

“Uh - Well that part is… not important. I’m calling about your Uncle, Peter Hale. I can wake him up.”

There was a heavy breath on the other end and a low murmuring male voice that sounded concerned. “Uncle Peter… That’s… that’s not possible.” 

“Well, it is, and I’m going to. Tomorrow. So, it would be cool to have an Alpha to point him at.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted; her voice warbled a little before it firmed up. “Who is this.” 

“Uh… You can call me… Mischief,” Stiles smiled. His chest thrummed with a fond ache when he looked over at Peter who met his heavy gaze. “You can call me Mischief, I’ve got some particular talents and I want to help your family. It’s time the Hale pack took back Beacon Hills.” 

“What do you want?” She asked. 

“To make things right,” he promised and willed her to hear his honesty. To feel his intentions. Her pulse fluttered into his attention briefly; a passing awareness. 

“I’ll be there in the morning,” she said and hung up. 

“Phase Three?” Peter asked, his eyes were slightly red-rimmed, his head cocked to his focused listening angle. 

This was the new last time his Peter would hear Laura’s voice. The quiet that came after the phone clunked on to the receiver was strung through with emotion. 

Stiles waded through the thick, outside-of-himself dread, and hugged Peter around the neck. He splayed a hand over the back of Peter’s head, petting through his hair, bringing him down into his shoulder. 

It was obvious it was just sinking in for Peter that he was rewriting more than just his own wrongs. 

“Phase three,” he agreed. 

\---

The Hale house was a skeleton of burnt and rotting wood. 

There were husks of old nests and burrows, abandoned before they were finished, tucked into most corners and holes. Even the animals knew this place wasn’t meant for the living anymore and moved on when they sensed it. 

It was a ghost, pale and sick, with moonlight scattered through the collapsed parts of the roof. The light shone off the charred wood, making it look slick and infected. 

“I would want to wake up here,” Peter said as he looked up. The moonlight made his profile striking. He was so beautiful - and so alive. 

Stiles adjusted his sweating palms on the rubber grips of the wheelchair handles and nodded slowly. Past-Peter had slumped over again; only a few claws still out and his ears rounded. The difference between them was gut-churning. 

“It’s a fresh start this time - this is… Not like this.” Stiles felt sick at the idea of waking past-Peter in this corpse of a home. There was no peace in that. 

“I’ll still want revenge,” Peter said, calm, his gaze had shifted to the side of the house and stayed there. There was a line in the brush, the mountain ash created a scar in the earth around the basement window. 

_Revenge._

Stiles was alright with that. Peter deserved it. Deserved whatever retribution he wanted and he deserved to enact it in his own mind, unfractured by years of endless burning. Without the holes in his heart where his pack bonds had disappeared and left unimaginable loneliness. 

“It will be beautiful.” Stiles didn’t have an ounce of pity for the blood this new Peter would shed as he marched toward the house and set his hands on the beams supporting the sloped porch overhang. The ground here was reluctant, even deep, deep in the soil. The trees had refused to extend their roots here. The grass was patchy and wilted. The Argent’s had salted the earth. 

Dandelions spread first. 

They sprung up around the house, and through the breaks in the foundation, up the dirt driveway. They came and they went - springing up and dying in cycles until they were as dense as carpet around and spattered through the house. 

Ink faded out of Stiles’ elbows; he puffed out a heavy breath and inhaled light instead. Stiles paused to rest his forehead on one hand against a beam before the heat of his magic was too much for him, and he stripped out of his hoodie and shirt. 

It was a comfortable melting this time, at his own pace. As he breathed the grass grew and saplings popped up in place of the weeds. Ivy came up the banisters to creep along the house. His shoulders became pale as the wolves, he had let Peter draw running down his back disappeared. Flowers grew. Wild as the curling of tree roots upsetting the ground around the house. The bones were reclaimed. Nature folded over the house in his last embrace for the Hale family. A symbol.

New growth was always possible. 

A hot hand slipped down his spine. Stiles turned his head to look at Peter. At his blue, blue eyes and the aching smile on his face. 

“It is beautiful,” Peter agreed in a low whisper as he kissed at the pale skin of Stiles’ shoulder. His beard tickled and Stiles twitched at the touch. 

“I’m going to fucking miss you,” Stiles exhaled heavily, trembling a little as he turned and embraced Peter properly. 

Peter kissed his head; rubbed against his hair. 

So much good would come though - even if they lost each other. Peter was going to gain so much. His pack. His family. Stiles knew this was best, even if it hurt like hell. 

Scott had wanted him, begged him, to go back when he’d found out about the spell. Begged not to let him get bitten. Begged him to change things. What did the consequences of magic matter when he could fix so many things? When he could fix all of the lives he broke? 

“I won’t kill Allison. You won’t kill Laura,” Stiles whispered. 

Peter exhaled through his nose but didn’t speak. 

\---

Sunrise came and went. Stiles tilted his face up into the cold blue morning. He had a Peter on either side of him up on the porch of the house.

“You remember where we landed?” Stiles asked, head on his Peter’s shoulder, leaned into the heat of the arm wrapped around him. Their fingers were tangled in his lap. 

Peter hummed his agreement, eyes closed. “You think she’ll be here soon?” 

Stiles had done a lot of research in preparation for this time-hop. He knew the exact times that the flight from New York landed in Sacramento - and how long it had taken Laura to drive up when she’d done it in his time. “Another hour, probably.” 

There was a certain amount of faith in the magic to manipulate circumstances as he would need them - but mostly he’d picked this month because there was a direct red-eye, with no delays, and good weather. 

“You should go back now,” Stiles said. 

“Will I go… back, back?” Peter asked as he straightened up a bit, his feet flexing down off the rotted porch step as he dragged his hand from around Stiles’ shoulder. 

Stiles shook his head and stood up, jiggled his knees, and twisted to either side to crack his spine. “No, you need me. I think,” he shrugged a bit. “We’ll get to say goodbye.” 

Birds were landing on the roof and a fat squirrel chased the fresh tree roots. Fauna moved in to investigate what had grown in the night. 

Porch wood creaked, a board snapped in a soft spot. Peter stood beside him and then turned to give him a firm kiss. Firm and lung clogging. He stayed when Stiles gripped his shirt. 

“We’ll get to say goodbye,” Stiles repeated, more sure. 

“Alright - take care of me,” Peter said. His fingers came up to briefly grasp Stiles’ under the chin before his hand dropped and he walked down the steps. Followed their path to the house, cut through the trees, and didn’t look back. 

Past-Peter grunted faintly, and Stiles agreed with him before he reached out to touch the worn-out werewolf. 

“Ready, sleeping beauty?” Stiles asked as he stood in front of the wheelchair. The vacancy in past-Peter’s face wasn’t much of an answer but Stiles knew anyway. 

Peter needed rest. He needed healing. He needed all of the shredded pieces of himself to be mended together again. 

The wood creaked as loudly as Stiles grunted when he wedged his hand under Peter’s limp knees, and lower back and lifted. He should have gone to the gym more. He always forgot how heavy the dead weight of a body was. 

“Even emaciated you’re like a pound cake,” Stiles muttered as he struggled with the angle and then made a triumphant noise when he had him up in his arms and cradled against his chest. Back aching but it wouldn’t matter - not like he’d wake up sore tomorrow. 

He laid past-Peter down in the yard, in a bed of daisies and dandelions and grass. The green health of the plants made Peter’s skin look even more waxy and dehydrated. Stiles adjusted the loose tie-up shirt and the ugly tie-up pants and wished he’d thought to bring him better clothes. 

“You would have criticized whatever I picked anyway, you had some style back in these days,” Stiles said while he ran his fingers through past-Peter’s hair. Fingers grazing through limp locks and against red scarring. “Not sure, exactly, what the style was but you definitely made a statement.” 

His Peter never explained the slick-back or the leather trench coat but after he’d admitted to his huge crush on James Marsters, Stiles had taken a few guesses. 

“Make Derek watch Buffy with you - he secretly loved it when I did.”

There was no more stalling, Stiles could feel it, time - the impending end of _his_ time. He laid his hands on Peter’s face and closed his eyes. Fingers dragging slowly down, to throat, and chest before he wiggled his hands up Peter’s shirt and laid them against bare skin. 

The heartbeat sunk into his fingers first, beating strong and healthy, despite the rest of him, Peter's lungs pushed at the weight of his hands at an even pace. The important systems were the most sustained - at the expense of everything else. Stiles’ pursed his lips while his awareness narrowed, there was nothing else to him. Just Peter in a deep expanse of blackness. It reminded him of the galaxy in his book - but darker. No stars, but plenty of chaos. 

The burns healed first. 

Skin chafed open and raw as the scars peeled away and fresh skin knit to replace it. Hair grew quickly after. Coarse on his leg, chest, and belly. Stiles could feel it itching as it did, and felt his own shoulder squirm down against the phantom tickle in his armpit. 

When the body was whole, healthy, with every cell in order and functioning as it should - Stiles’ turned his attention to the blistering feral snarling that was loud in his mind. Easing the soul was so much harder than convincing blood to flow. He was soaked in sweat, panting, his body pale; the smell of burnt ink wafted off in the breeze. It overpowered the fresh pollen of the blooms that surrounded them. 

Every inch of him ached, and burnt, felt boiled and chaffed and work out. Like he’d run six marathons in an ice storm on fire but when he blinked and he could see the sunlight instead of an imploding abyss - Stiles smiled. It was worth the exertion and he'd do it a thousand more times if he'd had to. 

Peter looked like he was sleeping. As if he could poke him and he’d wake up with an irritable sneer and a smart remark about coffee brands. 

There was still a little bit of time to wait for Laura, so Stiles laid down in the grass too. He reached out, taking Peter’s hand to squeeze in his own for a few moments. The last of the working magic flowing between them - setting Peter into a deeper sleep. A restful one. He laid for an hour, eyes closed, feeling the forest around him and the wolf beside him before his awareness closed in on an agitated Alpha at the peripheral of the woods. 

Stiles knew she checked here first the last time. He smiled a bit as he sat up and crossed Peter’s arms over his belly so his hands spread over it. He knew Peter hated sleeping on his back, always felt too exposed without something to cover his vulnerable middle. 

“If we ever meet again, I hope you know I’m your friend,” Stiles told him as he ran his fingers over Peter’s wrist one last time. 

The tip of his finger dripped an inky black as he pulled it away. There was a small swirl over Peter’s wrist. A delicate swipe of black wrapped half-way around the bone and green-blue veins. 

“Shit,” Stiles muttered, glancing backward for a moment before he rubbed his hand down his pants and reached back out to swipe at the mark. It didn’t budge, soaked in, but it shifted a little, the edges swirling more delicately. The ink took shape into something that looked less like a smear and more like… a mark. 

He’d never left one behind before - never knew he could. 

Distantly, Laura approached. The forest knew her and mumbled about it through the threads of energy that he was still connected to. He didn’t have any more time but he had the feeling that even if he did his ink had chosen to decorate Peter and he’d never convince it to budge. 

“Well, have a good life, I guess,” Stiles said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a thick envelope. All the rest of the loose ends he trusted the bits of his Peter in this Peter to take care of. 

He stepped back and sighed, looking down at Peter and then the house and then into the trees before he turned and left. Laura was coming. 

As he walked deep through the woods he felt her, felt the snap of a bond between beta and alpha, and if he strained the last of his magic he could hear the tearful reunion. 

\---

The meadow he’d picked, he’d picked because it had a sense of peace in it. Stiles felt it like a balm to his overextended mind as he greeted Peter with a limp wave. 

“It went well, I assume?” Peter said as he stood from the grass and approached.

Neither of them wasted time before grabbing at each other. Stiles wound around Peter’s shoulders, Peter squeezed his back and pushed his face into the crook of his neck. 

“It’s going to go so well. You’ll see.” Stiles’ chest hurt when he tried to breathe, crying freely as he burrowed into the embrace too. 

“I know. You’re incredible, Stiles,” Peter whispered, kissing his cheek, wiping his tears with one thumb, and then kissing him. “I love you.” 

Stiles opened his mouth, fingers tight on Peter’s shoulders, and the spell snapped shut on both of them. 

\---

The antique clock on the wall ticked, the pendulum swaying steadily in its cabinet as it marked second-by-second how late Deaton was. Peter rubbed at his wrist; head tilted over to look at Laura across the coffee table. 

“He couldn’t do the job once I don’t know why you think he’ll-“

Laura raised a hand to shush him, her lips a little pursed. “That’s not fair.” 

“I don’t have to be fair,” Peter muttered. He hated it when she looked like her mother. 

“You do have to be impartial. I need your best judgment, Peter. No petty bullshit.” She eyed him up sternly before she leaned over and took a mug off the tray they had set out to pour herself a coffee. 

The pack had grown too big to avoid hiring someone but Peter would have preferred conducting his own interviews instead of relying on Deaton’s opinion of a good fit. 

“The lateness isn’t promising,” Peter said. He raised an eyebrow at his niece. “You know what-“ 

There was a terrible sounding engine outside, a creaking slam of a metal door, and then the repetitive thump of hurried feet on their porch. The knock that came was surprisingly steady compared to the heartbeat. 

Peter stood, brushing himself off and lazily making his way to the front door. He paused on the rug by the shoe rack to adjust his shirt. His sleeve rugged down to cover the black mark on his wrist, fingers taking a moment to graze it for fortitude. 

For ten years it had been his grounding point. A reminder of his loss and his second chance. The other-worldly calm he still got whispers of when he traced the imprecise lines had gotten him through establishing his niece back in Beacon Hills, and exacting strategic revenge on those who had contributed to the downfall of his family, and dealing the gaggle of bitten wolves currently chasing Derek’s toddler around the back yard. 

Peter pulled the front door open and was taken back for a moment. 

On the step, was a young man, with his hair combed a little lopsided. It matched the uneven but charming spatter of moles on his cheeks and jaw. He had nervous energy and confidence both in spades and he was grinning so wide it… felt like gesturing a friend into the house.

Peter forgot the snarky remark he had loaded about telling time. 

“Sorry I’m late, Deaton got called in for a birth down on the hobby farm off sixth. You know the one with the little goats?” The man spoke as he took off his jacket and folded it over his arm. “We decided I should just come by myself. It makes more sense anyway. You’re not interviewing him.” 

“I take it you’re Stiles, then?” Peter managed to ask when the man took a breath. 

“Oh! Yes. Stiles Stilinski,” he kept grinning like it didn’t bother him to be stared at. His delicate, pale fingers rubbed at the hair behind his ear briefly before he gestured forward a bit. 

“Have you always lived in Beacon Hills?” Peter asked, his brow furrowed a little as he inhaled faintly. He’d known other magic users that had a talent for making themselves seem nonthreatening and familiar but Peter didn’t think Stiles was one of them. 

“Yeah, I did a stint of college further north and I’ve trained with supernaturals across the country but this has always been home,” Stiles said. His voice lilted, eyes narrowing a little, his lip had a little wrinkle to it. 

Peter nodded and rubbed at his wrist as he continued to stare at this potential emissary with a critical expression. 

“That’s an interesting tattoo,” Stiles said after the pause dragged for a few breaths. “Did you, uh… get it done in town? I’ve always wanted them but needles,” he made a face.

Peter looked down at his wrist and, with sureness he was never sure of, shook his head. “It’s not mine,” he said. Distracted for a moment before he stretched his hand out. “Thank you for coming. I’m Peter Hale.” 

Stiles blinked, owl-like before he parted his lips as shoved his hand out too. Their grips met, squeezed, shook and… lingered. 

“Nice to know you,” Stiles whispered, eyes wide. 

Delicate fingertips of Stiles’ other hand reached out and traced the black swirl on Peter’s wrist. The ink grew darker under his touch, pooling up to the surface, wet. 

One of Stiles’ fingers caught the drip. He raised his hand and they both watched as it traveled with gravity down the length of his finger, wrapping around his knuckle and settling in. 

The mark on his wrist wasn’t entirely gone, just thinner, he could still reach down and touch it. It was warm and dry under his fingers. 

Stiles stuttered an odd breath as they unclasped their hands to look at their respective marks. 

“I didn’t know I missed you,” Stiles exhaled. His eyes were red but he was smiling. 

Peter nodded. His weight bobbed forward, toward Stiles and the cool magic of him.

Soft footsteps interrupted and an equally gentle voice. “Peter? Everything alright?” Laura asked, brow raised, her gaze flicking between them. 

“Oh, I think so,” Peter smiled. “Laura,” he gestured between them, “our new emissary, Stiles.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If there's any tags or warnings you think this needs please let me know! Honestly if there's any tags you think would suit this fic let me know that too - I struggled to come up with them for this one
> 
> CW: Peter's nurse takes him out on full moons and she pets his hair and manually opens his mouth for his fangs while he's in a coma. ALSO mild descriptions of scarring and some pain.


End file.
